Ebenezer Methodist Church
Jasper, Jasper County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Area pioneers organized a church in 1861 which was served by circuit-riding ministers of the Methodist Episcopal church, South. A small log building, used by Methodist and Baptist congregations, was erected on land given by William P. M. and Mary Ann Dean. Destroyed by fire in the early 1890s, it was replaced by another wooden structure which also burned. A third building was erected which served as a church and school. It was razed in 1943, and in 1944 a new frame building was built. After serving the area for over 100 years, the Methodist Church was deactivated in 1965. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Area pioneers organized this Methodist congregation in 1861, served by the circuit-riding ministers who carried religion across the thinly settled Texas frontier. Its first log building, shared with the Baptists, burned—as did its successor—but the community rebuilt again and again, and a later structure doubled as both church and school. After more than a hundred years, the Methodist church was deactivated in 1965.
Why it matters
The repeated rebuilding of this humble church, and its double duty as a schoolhouse, shows how frontier settlers made a single structure serve their spiritual and civic life at once.
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Related people
- · William P. M. Dean
- · Mary Ann Dean
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ebenezer Cemetery
Jasper, TX
Begun in 1860 as a family graveyard with the burial of an infant son of the Dean family, this cemetery grew into a community resting place when the Deans deeded land for it and the adjoining Ebenezer Methodist Church in 1861. Among those interred here are citizens of the Republic of Texas, a veteran of the Texas Revolution, two unknown cowboys who died passing through, and generations of pioneer families.
Site of the Town of Zavala
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Zavala grew up on land within the 1829 empresario grant to Lorenzo de Zavala, the Mexican statesman who would later help found the Republic of Texas, and it took his name. Set along a river, the town served as an early boat landing and a mail and stage stop, and it incorporated in 1838. Its post office lasted until the Civil War before the community faded into memory.
Hamilton Cemetery
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This cemetery sits on the original townsite of Zavala, a colony founded in 1834 and named for the Mexican statesman and empresario Lorenzo de Zavala, who would soon help create the Republic of Texas. Settlers drawn to Thomas Huling's land built one of Jasper County's oldest communities along the Old Beef Trail and the Angelina River. Republic-era Texans are buried here, among them John Hamilton, a Republic defender whose grave carries a Daughters of the Republic of Texas medallion.
Homer Community Cemetery
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Settlement of this corner of Jasper County began in the 1830s, and the Homer community cemetery dates to 1865, with its oldest documented grave that of Jane Wilson Williams. Ten known citizens of the Republic of Texas rest here, along with veterans of the Texas Revolution and the Civil War and other early East Texas pioneers. The graveyard is one of the few physical traces the Homer community left behind.